


I'm Trying

by grace_lou_freebush



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Co-workers, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Song fic, Trapped, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 08:33:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grace_lou_freebush/pseuds/grace_lou_freebush
Summary: Co-workers Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy are trapped underground during a cave-in.HP Pop Punk Fest 2021 - Day 5, AlwaysHolding on to the hope that Padma and Theo would rescue them was like trying to grab hold of the light shining out the tip of Draco's wand or filling her lungs with fresh air in the dank, sealed caveThe glimmer of a grin on Draco's lips faded quickly. "What's wrong? What happened to you?"
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45
Collections: HP Pop Punk Fest 2021





	I'm Trying

**Author's Note:**

> Rated M because despite not being gratuitously descriptive, this fic deals with Hermione and Draco being trapped in a cave-in. The ending is ambiguous, so please mind your mental health when reading! This is your angst warning!
> 
> HP Pop Punk Fest 2021 - Day 5, Always
> 
> Much love to [Aneiria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aneiria/pseuds/Aneiria) for helping me brainstorm angsty plot bunnies!

The light from Draco's Lumos flickered out.

"Oh, no you don't," Hermione wheezed into the pitch dark, more to herself than her partner with how weak her voice was.

They needed to preserve their precious oxygen.

Trying to gauge the passage of time with a broken watch and no source of natural light, Hermione estimated they'd missed their check in twelve hours ago. Despite protocol specifying search and rescue plans needed to be implemented immediately, she hazarded a guess that it would have been another two hours before Padma and Theo got nervous enough to enact said protocol.

Crucial time she and Draco did not have.

"Draco," she called louder but still rasping. Leaning over arduously, she reached out her palm to shake Draco awake. She missed, her fingers hooking into his parted lips and the heel of her hand slicing through thin air. Caught off balance and too disoriented to right herself, she fell right into his lap.

He grunted but didn't rouse. She didn't bother moving even though his knee was very knobby in her tender ribs.

She lay there and ran over the order of events that had led to the cave-in that had trapped them and tried to figure out what she could have done differently - what she had done  _ wrong _ \- for the umpteenth time. She tried to tell herself it didn't matter, it had happened, she should focus on how they could move forward to survive.

But her trusty vine wood wand that Ollivander had given her when she was eleven was crushed. When Hermione and Draco had first come to, they'd used his wand light to search for an opening and had found the carved handle poking out from under a pile of rubble. Panic had won out initially, but now, with nothing else to fixate on, a deep sense of loss wriggled through her chest, tendrils of fear and mourning seeping out like black ooze. 

She'd been here before a few times, scared and lost and hurt.

Hermione was a woman of action. That was how she'd gotten herself and Harry and Ron through their adolescence. Plan, move forward; research, practice, do. So she scrambled to her feet.

The darkness was so complete her eyes flashed with ghostly tendrils. She blinked to know her eyes were even open. They strained, just like her aching muscles and throbbing side. She heaved a heavy breath, gasping on air that felt simultaneously too thick and too thin, and remembered this was one situation when  _ doing nothing _ was actually the necessary action.

Hermione sat and waited.

* * *

Draco stirred just as Hermione started to shiver.

Her breaths came in short, shallow gasps. Her head hurt. Her body sucked out the limited oxygen in the caved-in pocket underground and expelled too much carbon dioxide. She feared Padma and Theo wouldn't find them in time.

But Draco awoke.

He had to be just as weak as she was. She'd been injured, but he'd expended too much energy at the beginning when they thought they might be able to carve their way out. Now, he moaned lowly as the sounds of his shifting echoed off the stone walls.

The dim glow of his wand tip seared Hermione's strained eyes. Draco reached out and gripped her shaking hand.

"Save your strength," Hermione croaked through dry, chapped lips. How long had it been, now? Fifteen hours? Twenty? Long enough for the effects of dehydration to take their toll.

"Granger!" His voice hissed sharply, some emotion Hermione didn’t have to gumption to ponder filling the harsh sound. She mustered the strength to look up at Draco's face. Even sitting, he towered over her. The hand holding hers moved up to caress her cheek. His thumb traced the dark circles under her eye before he brushed an errant curl off her face. The rest of her locks must have been a knotted mess, but it really was the least of her worries at the moment. "Salazar, you look like shit."

Hermione coughed up a chuckle, trying not to focus on how wet it sounded. She was quite aware she was dying. Holding on to the hope that Padma and Theo would rescue them was like trying to grab hold of the light shining out the tip of Draco’s wand or filling her lungs with fresh air in the dank, sealed cave

The glimmer of a grin on Draco's lips faded quickly. "What's wrong? What happened to you?"

Hermione fought for each breath, knowing it was laboured due to depleted oxygen, but despite a slightly elevated breathing pattern, Draco seemed unaffected. Panic welled deep in her chest. Somewhere near her ribcage, however, it puttered out with pain and exhaustion.

She lifted a numb hand to wrap her ice-cold fingers around his wrist. Her trembling caused his hand to shake against her face.

"I—" Her throat rasped, and another wet cough scratched its way out of her chest. She tasted iron. "I wanted to tell you—"

"Granger," Draco cut her off, his voice hard and inflexible. "Hermione," he corrected himself, "you are  _ not _ telling me goodbye. I'm here; stay with me."

Hermione nodded, her tired eyes stinging with the lack of tears. She bit back the words that had been on the tip of her tongue for months. It had never been the right time to tell her research partner that she fancied him, and it seemed this wasn't the right time either. She wondered if she'd ever get the chance to tell him.

* * *

More hours passed. Draco put out his wand again to cast warming charms on Hermione. None of them stuck. Or, at least, Hermione had lost enough feeling that she never experienced the heat.

Despite her full-body quakes, Draco pulled her between his legs, her back to his chest.

"Here I am. Come on, let me hold you," he whispered into her curls.

"I'm trying," she promised him.

Something wet dripped onto her eyebrow.

"I know."

She was trying, but she was so tired. The oxygen in their little pocket must have been nearly gone. Her breaths came shallower and slower.

As her body ebbed and relaxed, she saw a pinpoint light from above. The ground rumbled and the light expanded and she exhaled as darkness swallowed her once again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope I activated all your feels! Feel free to shout at me in the comments or leave a kudos if you enjoyed!


End file.
